My youngest sister turned 19 last week. 19! We all have to grow up sometime I guess.

To celebrate her birth, I decided to make a special cake. After looking over a few recipes, I settled on making a chocolate and strawberry layer cake.

I found a solid chocolate cake recipe on Real Simple. I thought it was a little odd that it had me boiling water and butter to add to the dry ingredients, but it definitely worked.

For the strawberry layers, I looked to my favorite recipe site, Smitten Kitchen. This cake was so dense and delicious. If you are a strawberry fan, or even if you’re not, you need to try this. It was quite a bit of work, but definitely worth it. I also used the cream cheese frosting recipe on this site.

Happy Birthday Jaci!

PS- There’s A LOT of this leftover, so if you’re in the hood come on by for slice!